


And wanting something warm and moving

by lettersandsodas



Series: Catching Signals that Sound in the Dark [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Breathplay, Canon Compliant, F/F, Masturbation, Root is a terrible flirt, Shaw really doesn't want to like Root, she does though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:18:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersandsodas/pseuds/lettersandsodas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root is crazy, and unpredictable, and dangerous, and Shaw has no particular feelings of loyalty toward her. Still, she can’t deny that she’s developed a sort of possessiveness over Root’s life these past few months.</p><p>Shaw's POV in the aftermath of Root's escape. The first part takes place during the events of "Aletheia" (3x12).</p>
            </blockquote>





	And wanting something warm and moving

**Author's Note:**

> There are references to the events of the previous parts of the series in this one, so you should probably read those first. 
> 
> Apologies for a slow update. I had a total disaster of a week involving a roof failure and heavy rains.

After Root breaks out of her cell and saves Shaw from having her brains painted all over the wall of some shitty apartment, they don’t see each other for a long time.

Shaw doesn’t feel bad about the way things went down with Control, but she doesn’t feel good about it either. Leaving Root behind made sense for the mission. Root was incapacitated, and Shaw had to protect Harold and the number at all costs. Root understood that as well as anyone and had told her to go. It was the right call.

Shaw’s confidence in the correctness of her actions is all it takes to carry her through most days, but somehow it isn’t enough to keep this particular incident from leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. When she returns to the library the next day and catches a glimpse of the empty cage, Root’s blankets folded neatly at the bottom of the bench and an old food tray still sitting at the table, she feels a twinge of something. It’s not a big twinge, it never is, but it’s there—a cold, twisting feeling low in her gut.

She shrugs it off as she kicks her feel up on the desk and sets about unwrapping her sandwich. She hasn’t eaten all day, and she’s been looking forward to this the whole ride back. Business doesn’t bring her near Faicco’s all that much lately, but she takes full advantage of it whenever it does. The deli makes her third favorite sub in the city, an Italian that she orders with extra pepperoncini and ham even though it’s always overstuffed anyway.

Root would hate it, she thinks, and she finds her eyes drifting to the cage again.

The twinge comes back with enough force that when Shaw moves to take a bite of the sandwich, she ends up just eyeing it warily and then sighing in irritation as she lets it plunk onto the desk. She rolls her eyes as she grabs her jacket and starts the long walk to the apartment where it all happened.

Picking the lock is easy enough but finding any hints of what went down after they left will be decidedly harder. Her old employers are nothing if not efficient, and the place has already been sanitized, bullet holes patched and a new coat of paint applied so that it looks like nothing ever happened. There won’t be much to go off of as far as clues.

Still, “not much” isn’t the same as nothing, and Shaw can read a scene as well as anyone. She sniffs as she walks around the apartment, running her fingers over the spots that she knows were in the line of fire. The main room still smells faintly of bleach, but the smell is decidedly weaker in the hallway where Root went down. Good sign.

Shaw crouches at the spot where she last saw Root crumpled on the floor and flicks out the blade of her folding knife. The agency’s cleaning teams are thorough, but this was a rush job, and there are certain hard-to-reach spots that are almost impossible to scrub out completely. The little gaps in hardwood floors are one of them. Shaw runs the tip of her blade between the floorboards and hums softly to herself when it comes up nearly free of dried blood. Either the cleaners were unusually good, or there wasn’t much blood to begin with. Shaw suspects the latter, which means at that, at the very least, Root probably didn’t take a head-shot on the spot.

That’s a relief. Root is crazy, and unpredictable, and dangerous, and Shaw has no particular feelings of loyalty toward her. Still, she can’t deny that she’s developed a sort of possessiveness over Root’s life these past few months. If anyone is going to end Root, it should, by rights, be her. She’s had dibs since the first time the taser prongs burned their way into the side of her neck and certainly since she officially declared Root her hobby. The thought of someone else killing Root makes Shaw feel irritated, even angry, and she’s oddly satisfied with the knowledge that it probably hasn’t happened yet.

She suspects that Root is probably a lot less satisfied. There are worse things than death, and Shaw is pretty sure that being alive and in the hands of Control is one of them.

She frowns. There’s nothing else in the apartment that’s worthwhile or helpful, which means there’s not a lot she’s going to be able to do going forward except wait to see how this shakes out. She’s tired, and her stomach is growling. She wipes the blade of her knife on her pants, folds it shut, and locks the door on her way out. Reese better not have touched her sandwich.

Weeks later, Root shows up from god knows where, sans a stapes but alive and armed with her usual devil-may-care attitude and cocksure swagger. Shaw is not surprised, except in so far as she finds herself slightly on edge while she watches Root frolic through the snowy park with their new number. Root may have broken herself out of the cage, but Shaw is keenly aware of her own role in ensuring her freedom. Shaw went to bat for her with Finch. Shaw helped to ensure that she got her god back in her ear. The whole thing gives her a feeling of responsibility that pinches just a little too tightly, chafes too much. It feels itchy, almost.

Shaw seldom regrets her decisions because regret is pointless and based in a sense of guilt she doesn’t have, but part of her wonders as she watches Root breeze through this situation if she’s going to have to reconsider that policy.

“Don’t make me look bad,” she warns Root as she glares up at her like they’re in a goddamn play.

Root just smiles down at her from the window. “I couldn’t make you look bad if I tried.”

And there’s the flirting. Shaw can’t say that she’s missed it, but Root certainly does her best to make up for lost time, on that mission and on the ones that follow. She never mentions their night in the safe house—neither of them do—but she peppers in innuendo every time Shaw is alone with her for even a few seconds.

“I love it when you play doctor” when Shaw is checking the patch job on her bullet wound and her cochlear incision.

“Promises, promises,” when Shaw threatens to smack her if she doesn’t hurry up and install the spyware program before they get shot by the building’s night security.

“Oops, I got my dressings all wet” when they charge out into the rain in pursuit of a number and Root’s newest freshly bandaged wound gets soaked along with her shirt. “I mean, that’s not the only thing that's wet, but...”

Shaw knows to expect it by now, but somehow she’s never really prepared for it. Something about Root’s tendency to completely ignore her reactions in favor of continuing her never-ending barrage of flirtation has a way of making her feel unbalanced, like a knife that’s too weighted toward the blade. It reminds Shaw of those dreams she has sometimes, where she’s fighting a hulking attacker but all her punches are landing wide or glancing off or whiffing through his body like it’s made of air. It’s an unfamiliar sensation in her waking life, and it’s disorienting.

Shaw compensates by never offering Root anything more than a huff or a glare in response to her comments, and, luckily for her, that’s usually enough. Even Root has limits when it comes to how far she’ll push when they’re actively engaged in a mission, and they’re seldom together when they’re not pursuing some sort of objective. These days, Root has no sooner dropped a post-save innuendo than she’s tilting her head toward her implant side and agreeing to dart off to Paraguay or Japan or Moscow on vague orders and an even vaguer timeline.

Her frequent and sudden absences save Shaw what she assumes are quite a few conversations that she has no interest in having. In that sense, they’re a relief.

Unfortunately, the relief doesn’t last quite as long as Shaw would like.

It’s a Tuesday, and Shaw finds herself alone in the library, monitoring the computers. Root is off who knows where, has been for days, and Reese and Fusco and Bear are dealing with a group of bank robbers who have a fondness for explosives and an enviable ability to be in and out of vaults in under a minute. Capturing them is tricky enough that even Finch is out of the office on this one, working undercover in the bank itself to see if the financial trail can clue them in about the identity of the inside man. Shaw wants in on the mission more than anything, but she’s got a bullet wound in her calf so fresh that it’s still oozing through the bandage every few hours, and Finch insists that she elevate it and keep off it for a day.

“You’re more valuable to us if you allow yourself to heal properly, Ms. Shaw.”

Shaw argues with him, of course, because she’s fine and she knows her limits and it's not as if providing rooftop sniper coverage requires a lot of running ability anyway. Ultimately, though, Finch refuses to budge, and there isn't much she can do about it. He’s the boss, and it’s his Machine that’s dealing out her daily doses of extra-legal excitement and his signature on those hefty paychecks that are keeping her in custom ammo and shiny new weapons. She doesn’t have much of a choice but to sit this one out if she wants to keep her gig and the fancy toys and renewed sense of purpose it nets her.

Still, Shaw hates being useless, and she’s twitchy and irritated the whole time she watches the monitors. She smushes violently at the stupid red stress ball that John bought Harold a couple of weeks ago. On the screen, John hits a block of C4 with a deadeye shot and sends four men flying back with the force of the explosion. Jealousy flares in Shaw's chest, and she growls as she hurls the ball at the monitor bank. Goddamn leg.

“A little tense, sweetie?” comes a lilting voice from behind her. Root. Fantastic.

“Maybe I can help.”

Shaw rolls her eyes but doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t want to give Root the satisfaction, even though she has to admit that a little part of her doesn’t hate the fact that Root has chosen this moment to materialize. She may be annoying, but Shaw will take annoyance and discomfort over boredom any day of the week.

“What are you doing here, Root?”

Root clicks her tongue, but Shaw can hear the smile in her voice when she says, “Now, now. Is that any way to greet a gal pal, Shaw?”

“We are _not_ ‘gal pals,’” Shaw spits out. “We’re not even friends.”

That one may have been harsh, even for her, but Root can take it. Shaw pictures the little frown that she’s sure is on Root’s face right now, and she feels the corners of her own mouth twitch up.

“Tsk,” Root pouts as she moves to straddle the desk chair next to hers. Shaw watches from the corner of her eye as Root folds her arms over the back, resting her chin on them and leaning forward to stare at the screens. “So, what are we watching?”

“ _I’m_ watching Reese and Fusco take out a gang of bank robbers who were planning to kill our number,” Shaw replies, and glares pointedly at Root when she feels her arm settle against the side of her elevated leg. She gives her a quick once-over. Her hair is a shade darker than it was the last time Shaw saw her, and she’s got a hint of bruising around her right wrist. Otherwise, she looks okay.

Shaw jerks her leg away when Root shows no inclination toward moving her arm, but her voice sounds less annoyed than she intends it to when she snaps, “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere wreaking havoc and preventing the AI apocalypse?”

“Not at the moment," Root replies with a shrug. "It’s a rare night off for me, as it turns out.”

Shaw raises an eyebrow. “So you decided to spend it here. In the library.” She would comment on how sad and nerdy that is if she weren't fairly certain that Root’s motives for choosing this particular destination had nothing to do with books or a burning desire to experience a hundred-year-old rickety shower. So much for avoiding unpleasant conversations.

“Well,” Root says, smiling in a way that makes her look decidedly too pleased with herself. “She did tell me you were here.”

Shaw can see the hook gleaming in the bait from a mile away, but she takes it anyway. That’s becoming habit with Root. “And you thought what?” she asks, returning her attention to the monitor to watch as Fusco tears the ski mask off one of the perps and drops a knee onto his chest. “We’d have a little girl talk? Maybe paint each other's nails?”

“Mm,” Root hums, and Shaw can hear the amusement in her voice. “I don’t need you to talk for what I had in mind, Shaw.”

Shaw rolls her eyes again but intentionally keeps them fixed on the screen. Bear is latched onto one of the assailant’s calves, and the guy is about to raise the butt of his gun to strike. Shaw’s trigger finger twitches, and rage wells up in her throat. It subsides when she sees the man’s arm jerk as Reese’s bullet enters his shoulder, and it dies down almost completely as she watches John walk over to the man’s sprawled form and give him an extra shot in the kneecap. She would have done worse, but she supposes it will do.

“It looks like this is winding down,” Root remarks, then reaches out to nudge Shaw’s good leg with her foot. Her voice has that honeyed quality it always gets when she’s about to lay it on thick, and Shaw braces for it, tenses as Root’s arch run up her calf. “You know, She got me a hotel room only a couple of blocks from here.”

Shaw grunts, reaches down to slap Root’s foot away when it reaches the spot behind her knee. “Bully for you.”

“You should come back there with me.”

“And why would I want to do that?” It’s an obtuse retort even by the standards of their little game, and Shaw would feel disappointed in herself if she were the kind of person who had shame. As it is, she can see Root shoot her a brief, pitying look that Shaw wants to punch off before she smiles again.

“Mm. I think you’d find the room’s… amenities very pleasing.”

Shaw scoffs.

“I’m just saying, it’s a nice hotel with _very_ extensive room service menu. I'm sure you could find something good. They even do chocolate fountains.”

“Those things are breeding grounds for bacteria.”

“True,” Root agrees, tipping her head to the side in exaggerated contemplation. “Oh well. As yummy as melted chocolate sounds, I’m not really wedded to the idea of food play. I’m sure we could find other ways to keep ourselves entertained.” She leans forward until she’s in Shaw’s space, near enough for Shaw to feel her body heat through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. “How about you, Shaw? Any entertainment you’d like?”

The hairs on Shaw’s arm stand up where Root’s pressed close her, and Shaw feels tension begin to string inside her and tease at her temples. She glares at Root, hard.

Root shrugs it off, but sits back anyway. “Oh, come on. The tub’s made for two, and the jets look very promising. Plus, the headboard is--”

“Root,” Shaw warns, but Root just keeps talking, her voice light and optimistic.

“—perfect for holding onto or zip tying. And the view of the city is great. It’s a nice, big window. Could be fun to brace your hands on the sill and look out while we—“

“Root,” Shaw growls. “You’re giving me a headache."

Root just raises her eyebrows. “My bad, Shaw. But you know what they say is good for headaches…”

Shaw stifles a sharp, disbelieving laugh. God, this woman. Shaw has never met anyone so relentless, and she’s trained a half-dozen assassins who can go days without food or sleep in order to complete their missions. It’s as baffling as it is infuriating, and Shaw decides that she’s done with whatever this is.

“Listen carefully,” she growls, grabbing Root by the collar and tugging her out of her chair until she’s stumbling back toward the wall. She ignores the ache that shoots through her leg when she moves and the way the little huff Root lets out when her back collides hard with the plaster sounds decidedly more pleased than pained. “I don’t do repeats. Got it?”

She intends it to be a harsh brush-off, but Root doesn’t flinch. In fact, the predatory smile that blooms over her face makes Shaw feel uncomfortably like she’s just lost a game of chicken that she hadn’t realized she was playing.

“Mm. I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging our little tryst, Shaw. And that’s not what I hear,” Root says, pressing forward into Shaw’s grip and grinning in a way Shaw assumes is supposed to be seductive. She lets her voice go husky. “I hear you can be a three-and-out kind of gal for the right person.”

“And where would you have heard that?” she snaps automatically, then mentally kicks herself for bothering to ask. “You know what, never mind.” She grips harder at Root’s collar, shoves into her until she can feel her knuckles press into Root’s sternum. “It doesn’t matter because you are decidedly not ‘the right person,’ and it’s _never_ going to happen again. Never.”

“No?” Root says. Her tone is playful, but the look that settles over her face as she lets her hand drift to where Shaw’s is fisted in her shirt is anything but. Root tips her head back and lets her lips part, and Shaw only has a second to feel grudging admiration for how quickly Root can shift the energy in a room before she becomes aware that Root’s fingers are prying gently at her grip, urging her hand up to her bared throat. Shaw’s palm is pressed against Root’s too-warm skin before she realizes it, and she can feel Root’s breath hitch as her fingers settle over all the delicate pathways in her neck. Shaw thinks about the safe house, about closing her fingers around Root’s airway, about the feeling of Root’s hot, gasping breaths against her thigh.

When she glances up to see Root’s eyes dark and her lower lip pulled between her teeth, Shaw inhales sharply to replace the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Root just looks at her unblinking, licks her lips until they’re wet and shiny and husks, “See, I think I could be just the right person.”

Shaw can feel the vibration of the words against her palm like a jolt of electricity, and she drops her grip, shakes her hand off like it just betrayed her as she steps back. She’s just about to unleash a stream of invective when the sound of Reese’s voice comes in through her earpiece.

“All clear,” he says. “The number is safe, and we’re headed back.”

“Finally,” Shaw snaps. She grabs her coat up off the desk and doesn’t look at Root as she pushes past her to get to the stairwell. There’s no way she’s waiting for the elevator, not tonight. “Tell Finch and Reese that I’m off the clock.”

Shaw pushes the building’s door open harder than is strictly necessary, and it groans against its hinges before it swishes shut behind her. The street outside has its usual urine smell, but the cool night air feels good on her face. She jams her hands into her coat pockets, ignores the ache in her calf, and walks with purpose to her fifth favorite sandwich shop.

“Ham on rye, no mayo,” she tells the woman behind the counter. “Double meat. No, triple.”

When she gets back to her apartment, she tears open foil around the sandwich before she even kicks her shoes off, and she takes an enormous bite as she plops onto the couch. She can feel the mustard smear along her cheeks, but she doesn’t care, just licks it off as best she can before plucking a piece of ham from between the bread and cramming it into her mouth.

She washes the bite down with a swig of the whiskey that lives on her coffee table and smiles to herself. In the moment, it’s the best damn sandwich she’s ever had.

That night, Shaw can’t get to sleep. It’s ridiculous, really. She’s got a full belly and a pleasant buzz, and she’s decidedly drowsy from a day of idle sitting around. Besides, she’s a trained military operative, and her time bouncing around from one country to the next on time-sensitive missions has made her an expert at falling asleep whenever and wherever sleep is available. It’s a necessary skill when you never know when the next lull in the action is going to come.

Shaw shifts from one side to the other, punches at her pillow, then shifts again. The muscles in her neck feel tense, and she can't get her mind to quiet. She huffs as she rolls onto her back and stares up at the blades of her ceiling fan. The clock on the nightstand read 1:46 am the last time she checked, and she has to be up by 5 for her morning run. She’s going be dragging ass if she doesn’t get some rest soon.

She sighs, and toys with the waistband of her boy shorts, letting her fingers dip just underneath. She isn’t in the mood, not really, not yet, but she knows that sometimes a little rush of oxytocin is just the thing for drifting off to sleep.

She moves her fingers lower, toying with the short thatch of hair even as she lets her other hand wander under her shirt to palm at her breast. Her body cooperates well enough, her nipple hardening under her palm and sending a little spark of pleasure down to her groin, but her mind is slow to settle on a fantasy. She closes her eyes, tries to force herself to conjure up something.

The people who do things to Shaw in her little reels of mental film are usually just faceless outlines, indistinct figures with cocks or tongues or rattan canes or whatever other flavor of appendage or toy happens to be floating her boat that today. Tonight, though, it’s different. As Shaw’s fingers press lower, tease at her clit, Shaw’s mind drifts to a long, pale neck framed by flowing brown hair, to a voice that’s soft and teasing as its owner presses her lips to Shaw’s ear.

“Trouble getting to sleep, sweetie?”

Shaw groans. Clearly, her brain is a traitor. There is no other explanation for this, and certainly no other reason why Root’s terrible innuendo would be intruding into her private fuck time. Nevertheless, she feels a little rush of moisture at the words and at what she imagines Root’s breath would feel like against the shell of her ear, and she dips her fingers down to collect it, sighing as she works them back up.

She tells her mind's rendition of Root to shut up as she shoves her against a wall, closes her teeth hard on her pulse point and startles her into gasp that renders her mercifully non-verbal. She imagines sucking the flesh in her mouth, licking at the salt of Root's skin as Root's body arches into hers of its own accord. The idea of making Root lose control, of forcing her to be at the mercy of her body’s whims, taps into something primal in Shaw, and she moves her fingers more purposefully over her newly slick flesh.

In her fantasy, Shaw’s hands push between them, working under Root’s shirt to scratch over the swell of her belly and palm at her breasts. Root is so overheated, so responsive to the touches that Shaw doesn’t waste much time with foreplay, just moves her hands down to nudge impatiently at the waistband of Root’s pants until Root relents and reaches to flick open the button. Shaw doesn't hesitate to drop to her knees, tugging the tight jeans along with her as she goes. Root is wearing little black panties that Shaw barely bothers to notice as she shoves them aside to bury her face in her pussy.

Shaw loves using her mouth, and this particular line of thought is usually a reliable one for getting her off quickly. She catches her clit between her fingers, moves them furiously as she imagines Root hot and slick against her tongue, her lips. Even in her imagination, Shaw can’t hold back a groan as she licks into her.

Fantasy Root has her head thrown back and her eyes squeezed shut as she pants and gasps and moans, and Shaw likes that, likes the thought of wrecking her and rendering her speechless. She digs her fingers into Root’s thighs and holds her steady while she moves her mouth all sloppy and reckless, lapping and sucking and grazing with her teeth until Root's hands are gripping her hair and her hips are thrusting against her face. Shaw gets slicked with come from her chin to the bridge of her nose until all she can smell, taste, and feel is Root, and it ignites something wild inside her. She presses forward more, licks Root firmer and deeper as Root practically rides her face, pressing down onto her tongue and lips and nose so hard that Shaw can barely breathe.

“Fuck, Shaw, oh,” Root cries, and Shaw imagines the lines of her face, all screwed up with pleasure and damp with sweat. The fantasy version of herself seals her lips around Root's clit, suckles at it even as her tongue keeps working. The hands fisted in Shaw’s hair pull so hard that her eyes sting with moisture, and Root’s muscles lock and her breath hitches for a moment before she slackens with a loud moan, hips jerking uncontrollably into Shaw's mouth.

Shaw’s mind conjures a vivid sensation of Root’s muscles fluttering against her tongue, of Root’s pelvis pressing forward so forcefully that it stings her nose and crushes her lips against the sharp edges of her teeth. Her own fingers work at her pussy, and her lungs burn as she grinds her soaked flesh into her hand. The wound on her calf aches as the muscles in her legs tighten, but it just makes it better, and Shaw gasps as she feels pressure build everywhere. The taste of Root’s orgasm is the last coherent thing Shaw imagines before she’s spiraling over the edge with a choked cry.

“Shit,” Shaw mutters, panting into the darkness as she wipes her hand off on her belly.

Everything goes dark around the edges, and the next thing she’s aware of is waking up to the sound of her alarm, her shorts sticky and her fingers still smelling of sex.

“Shit,” she says again, and rolls her eyes at herself as she climbs out of bed to start her run.

When she gets to the library later that day, Root is still there. Of course. Shaw huffs and doesn't greet her, but Root ignores the gruffness in favor of giving Shaw her usual lingering once-over. She raises an eyebrow when she sees the large coffee Shaw has gripped in her hand and the bags that Shaw knows she's stills sporting under her eyes.

“You look tired. Rough night, sweetie?”

“The worst,” Shaw grunts in agreement.

“Maybe there’s something I can do.”

The smile that teases at Root’s lips as she lets her eyes rake down Shaw’s body is downright lascivious. Maybe it's the residual endorphins from her run, or maybe it's the fact that she's resigned herself to the knowledge that they're definitely going to fuck again, but it doesn't make Shaw feel as off-balance as usual. She returns Root's gaze, letting her eyes settle pointedly on Root's chest before she raises them to fix Root with her usual unblinking stare.

“Maybe,” she says. “I’ll let you know.”

The wide-eyed look of surprise on Root’s face almost makes up for everything, Shaw thinks as she kicks her feet up onto the desk. She hides a victorious smirk around the rim of her coffee cup.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I actually had quite a debate with myself about what term Shaw would use for the sandwich she was eating. We don't actually know where Shaw is from, although we know her parents spent some time in New York and that she probably has some connection to Texas given that she and her father drove up to watch the Oilers play the Eagles. Based on that, I went with "sub," which is common in Texas but still acceptable in New York. I'd be willing to bet that she uses that term interchangeably with "hero," but I thought the latter would be confusing to readers who are unfamiliar with the nuances of U.S. sandwich terminology.
> 
> Also, the dialogue-heavy part of this was terrible to write, so here's hoping it wasn't as awful to read.


End file.
